This came up in one of my technical writing classes: Evaluating the grade level and readability of a text. In a creative writing perspective, you want to write at the level your audience is familiar with. This rule is changed up a bit if you want to be writing for advanced readers, where you would want to target the interests of say, 8th graders but have them read at a 10th grade level.

To do this test, take a sample of your writing and copy-paste it into the text box. This site is the one I like best from my fifteen minutes of browsing around.

How this essentially works is it evaluates how many words you have that are 3+ syllables long, and calculates the frequency of them. It also looks at the average sentence length. There's an actual formula (go search wikipedia for Flesch-Kincaid and it should show up) but I don't feel like repeating it. So, go muse and have fun.

FYI, mine was grade 8 with a readability of 64.

Bob: hmm, there's a lesson in all this.Mr. Eglamore: Okay. Let's hear it.Bob: Never let sixty angry kids use a herd of laser cows to take over your house.

The Silver Blade Inn stood by Third Avenue, down the main road where although one of the major roads, it was less frequented by the common folk. Many disliked the inconvenience of using the road down Third Avenue for at the opposite end of the road, one would be met by a right turn, leading to Fifth Avenue instead of the town square, unlike the other roads, which spread and fanned out from the centre of the town. Despite the fact that is was more inconvenient in having to travel by Third Avenue, it didn't stop the more enthusiastic folk from situating their businesses down Third Avenue. There were almost no dwellings there, for most dwellings were even further from the town square, but a single straight road, namely The Express led straight to the many dwellings.

And got this:

Spoiler! :

ResultMethod used: Flesch-Kincaid (English).

Flesch-Kincaid Grade level: 16.Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score: 41.

Yet when I actually submitted another part of my story I got another result far from that =/

Anyway, this is an interesting site =o I actually spent quite a bit of time there =P

Absence weakens mediocre passions and increases great ones the same way wind blows out candles and kindles fires.

Essays were what I expected, however the poems I placed into it got quite hilarious.

One garnered a grade level of 535 with reading ease of...-5735. So we can see how this system works. Another poem got a grade level of 29, with reading ease of 1. I then found another poem, written at 11 grade level with reading ease of 41...and it is published at that. And then a very, very famous poem got 17 grade level with reading ease of 39. Finally, Howl by Ginsberg gets 142 grade level and -297 reading ease.

Amusing I think. Even more interesting is that the score actually predicts certain writers grade level well who I put in.